A Slidell man is facing a murder charge after authorities say he beat his 7-week-old son to death.

The child, one of twin boys, is identified as Karter Smith. He died Saturday morning of injuries he received last Wednesday. Authorities say his father, 25-year-old Anthony Dearmas, beat the child when he would not stop crying.

Advertisement

The homicide occurred in the Eagle Lake Mobile Home Park just north of Slidell. An acquaintance of the family came on the scene shortly after the incident occurred.

"I came in and dialed 911. The baby was dead in his arms. He didn't want to give people the baby. He didn't want to do anything," Ganarro Johnson said. " I don't know (how) somebody can to that to their own child. Not me personally. I just can't see it.

Emergency medical technicians rushed to the scene and were able to revive the little boy and get him to an area hospital, but the he died Saturday. Authorities said Dearmas initially fabricated a story about the child's injuries, but later admitted to punching the child.

"It is possible he could have taken the child and smashed him on a hard surface on one side, flipped him over and smashed him on a hard surface on the other side," Dr. Charles Preston, the St. Tammany Parish coroner said, "but we think that it's more likely that this was a direct pressure kind of injury, such as kneeling or stepping on the head."

"How someone can do this to a defenseless infant is beyond me, much less the child's father," St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith said.

Neighbors said the couple have a stormy relationship, but no one expected this to happen.

"Poor little child, man. I mean it's just so sad to hear about this child, you know. ... That's sad. That is sad," next door neighbor James Sylve said.

"If I had any inkling of an idea, I don't freaking know, just wish it didn't happen, that's all, I just wish it didn't happen," Johnson said.

The coroner and the sheriff said crimes involving infant children take a toll on their employees.

"This was a very brutal crime and it effects us all here at the agency and his agency as well. It's very disgusting to me and to our detectives that had to work this," Smith said.

"To see this senseless death is very trying," Preston said.

Preston determined the cause of the child's death was blunt force trauma to the head, and ruled it a child abuse homicide.